Thursday, May 20, 2010

Softball and Rusty Skillz

Two months ago, I called the local Rec center and put my name on their "looking for a team" softball recruiting list. A week or so later, I got chosen (based solely on a phone call but I'm not complaining!).

I was up front with Coach. Said I hadn't played in years (but didn't specify that it was well over 25 years ago that I played softball with any sort of regularity - we're talking middle school summer leagues, folks) but that I'd love to play if they could deal with my Rusty Skillz.

First practice, Coach was considering me for right field. For grins, he put me at first to see what I could do there. I can catch and have pretty good hand-eye coordination, and I'm not intimidated by my shortstop or my third-baseman (Cuz those boys can bring the heat [as S would say]). The position stuck - I play first and I love it.

We had our first league game last night. We lost 12-6. I wasn't expecting to beat this team...we scrimmaged with them several times and they are good (so good, in fact, that I think they should move up to one of the more competitive leagues). We, on the other hand, have a sloppy outfield defense - two outfielders who can't catch and when we're facing power hitters, that sucks. But our infield defense is pretty good so that's a point in our favor. We've got a couple of excellent hitters but I'm not one of them...yet. I hit it straight to the short stop every time.

My Rusty Skillz are getting polished up, and man, I had FUN last night.